Gov. Spencer Cox answers questions from the media during his monthly PBS news conference in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (Pool photo by Bethany Baker/The Salt Lake Tribune)
When thinking about Utah’s nuclear future, Gov. Spencer Cox said he wants people to think less of the giant nuclear plant where Homer Simpson works, and visualize more a picture of dozens of small modular reactors, stacking in the state over time.
While many Utahns are still trying to wrap their heads around the idea Cox is envisioning, he has already signed a couple of memorandums of understanding with companies to help it materialize — and, he said, he wants to go big.
On May 23, Cox joined the founder of Valar Atomics, a California nuclear developer, in announcing their partnership to meet President Donald Trump’s goal to have an operational advanced reactor on American soil by July 4, 2026, at the San Rafael Energy Research Center in Emery County.
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On Monday, he signed another agreement with another company for the nuclear efforts, Cox said during his monthly news conference broadcast by PBS Utah.
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“We’re going to be working with all of these companies. We want to find the best technology. We’re not betting on any one technology or any one company. That doesn’t make sense,” Cox said on Tuesday. “We’re betting on the idea that there is going to be a nuclear renaissance.”
While research shows that nuclear developments usually go for a hefty price tag, Cox said that currently the initial plans won’t cost anything to the state, since the state already acquired the San Rafael Energy Lab during the 2024 legislative session and that will be one of the state’s main contributions in the agreement.
“We’re just providing space for these companies to come in and run their new technology there to see if it actually works,” Cox said. “And so that’s not going to cost us anything. The hope is it will save us down the road.”
Lawmakers did agree to fund $10 million for Cox’s Operation Gigawatt nuclear initiative; the governor said that money is for siting.
Utah has also sought to ease the regulations to make nuclear energy production a reality. First by suing the federal government in January — then still under the Biden administration — over its strict rules to permit the resource. Then, by passing big legislation to set the foundation for the state’s nuclear energy future.
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The U.S. is lagging behind countries like China in the development of nuclear plants, Cox said. Now, with a new White House administration prioritizing a quicker licensing process for nuclear reactors and ordering a plan to add 300 gigawatts of nuclear energy capacity in the country by 2050, Cox believes Utah can lead the way.
“The market will decide how big that is,” Cox said, “government is not going to decide that, but we’re going to present opportunities.”
Other agreements happening across the state have centered around the construction of power-hungry data and AI centers. While Cox says he remains “fairly agnostic” on them, he believes they’ll be built in many areas of the country either way, drawing a substantial amount of energy from states’ shared grid.
“Even if we didn’t have a single data center here, we would still need to significantly increase our power production,” Cox said. “If we’re going to significantly increase our power production, we might as well put them here.”
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